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A lot can happen sitting on the runway of an Air Force base, waiting for Boeing B-52 bombers to land. You can learn how to play chess, find out your house is in foreclosure, lose your business and car . . . or a plane could crash, exploding into a ball of fire. That last one never happened on David Siegel's watch. If it did, the Westgate Resorts CEO and owner of the Orlando Predators was well-equipped to handle it. Everything else, though, punctuated Siegel's six years of service — 1 1/2 years of active duty and the rest in the reserves — as a firefighter at Homestead Air Reserve Base. "We sat on the runway in the trucks with the foam turrets and wore...

Related "Air Transportation Disasters" Articles

A lot can happen sitting on the runway of an Air Force base, waiting for Boeing B-52 bombers to land.
You can learn how to play chess, find out your house is in foreclosure, lose your business and car . . . or a plane could crash, exploding into a ball...

We don't need to know the political or religious views of Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Gunter Lubitz to call his crashing of a crowded airliner into a mountainside an act of terrorism. And we don't need any further evidence to recognize a cruel irony:...

Here are your stories for Thursday in Central Florida: pilot may have intentionally crashed plane; metro Orlando population is surging; man drove family in pond on purpose; and foreclosure notice on house sold 21 years ago.
1. As a frantic pilot...

Calm 911 callers reported seeing a quickly descending helicopter followed by a "boom" and black smoke from a "blazing" fire in the moments after it crashed into the guest house of a College Park home on Sunday afternoon.
Three...

Bruce Teitelbaum was the owner of Alligator Shredding. I have been his client for several years. A weekly visit by a shredder for most business owners is an uneventful, rather mundane brief few minutes of the week. Not with Teitelbaum.
He would come to...

Here are your stories for Wednesday in Central Florida: two Americans on crashed German plane; riders rescued from Universal coaster; Orlando officer facing criminal charges; Lake says no to huge sand mine.
1. The victims of the crash of a Germanwings...

Everything appeared to be going smoothly for pilot Bruce Teitelbaum when his Robinson R44 II helicopter was approved for takeoff from Orlando Executive Airport at 2:10 p.m. Sunday.Radio transmissions to and from Teitelbaum's chopper detail the moments...

Bruce Teitelbaum and Marsha Khan loved flying helicopters.
The couple regularly flew out of Orlando Executive Airport, where he earned his pilot's license last year from HQ Aviation.
While he handled the controls of one of HQ's Robinson R44 four-seat...

Just as Peter Ronca was walking into his home near his College Park neighborhood Sunday afternoon, he could hear the roar of a helicopter as it plunged closer to his neighbor's house.
Ronca said he could hear as the helicopter plowed through trees...

Here are your stories for Monday in Central Florida: helicopter crash kills three; Senator from Texas declares run for presidency; coffee and shopping all-in-one; and Lake Eola as Orlando's center.
1. Police have confirmed that three people died when a...

The largest sections of a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed during a nighttime training mission were pulled Saturday from the waters off Florida's Panhandle amid efforts to recover the remains of all seven Marines and four soldiers who were killed.
...

Divers have found the wreckage of a military helicopter in just 25 feet of water after it crashed in dense fog during a Florida training mission, killing seven elite Marines and four experienced soldiers. But more bad weather Thursday delayed the recovery...

Two people, including a child, were hurt Tuesday when an aircraft tug hit a jet bridge at Orlando International Airport, officials said.
The tug, a vehicle that moves jets, hit the accordion-style hallway as passengers were getting off United Airlines...

An Orlando man died Tuesday when he lost control of his bicycle and flew over the handlebars, landing on the ground, officials said.
Florida Highway Patrol troopers identified the man as Gabriel Rodriguez, 25.
About 1:40 a.m., Rodriguez was riding a...

Lake County law enforcement officials and investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration are still trying to determine what caused a single-engine plane crash that happened on Sunday.
It happened around 1 p.m. That’s when Clermont Police and Fire...

A single-engine plane crashed on the pilot's own property outside Clermont Sunday afternoon.
The crash took place about 1 p.m. in the Lost Lake Reserves subdivision, Clermont police said.
The owner of the plane, David Harmon, told police and Lake County...

Days before Jarrick Pugh jumped to his death from a third-floor landing at an Orlando apartment building, he was on the phone with his father planning his first semester of college.Since October, his father, Carlton Pugh, has been trying to piece together...

Champ
Sarina Gumbert: An air traffic controller at Orlando International Airport, she acted with grace under fire one morning last October when a corporate jet was heading toward a commercial airliner after each had just taken off. Quickly recognizing...

It was a little after 11 a.m. on Oct. 24, and Sarina Gumbert was seated in front of a scope, or radar screen, in the bunker-like air-traffic-control room near the Airside B garage at Orlando International Airport.
She had just established contact with...